If something is important to my spouse, I do it/ it is important to me.

I don’t argue, I don’t make excuses, I don’t make jokes.

For something like a roommate or parent or (gasp) spouse, if they want the doors and windows of the house locked while we sleep, that sounds damn reasonable and I’ll make sure to do that. That is the respectful and respectable thing to do.

Honestly Op, sounds like there is something else underlying his refusal to lock the door after late night dog walking. Good luck.

DH and I had this exact same problem. He can be absentminded and it was completely a safety issue for me. I sat him down after the millionth argument and explained the safety issue. It isn’t just me nagging, I explained that I felt unsafe and was afraid someone might attack me. If I were ever attacked, I know he’d never forgive himself. DH felt bad about his forgetfulness and how much it was stressing me out and we came up w a payment policy to try to fix it — $20 paid to me every single time he forgot to lock the door. I got to spend it anywhere I wanted to. It only took about $100 before DH started remembering to lock the doors. 7 yrs later, we’ve only had about 2-3 unlocked slip-ups. More often than not, he now ends up locking me out due to overzealous locking.

Get a dog

Anonymous wrote:I don't WANT to take EVERY PRECAUTION. We'd never do anything, in that case.

Yes I lock the door. But sometimes I don't.

It is a long long road between taking every precaution to the point of not being able to do a thing, and remembering to lock the door.

Sometimes you have these risk/gain tradeoffs where you decide that it's worth the small risk to go skydiving because you get such a rush. There is no upside to not locking the door, though. There's no gain. It's all risk - outside of the gain of just defying your more cautious partner or having to remember that one thing.

DH and I are both from NYC, so this in particular is not a worry for us. But before the last person goes to bed certain things are done:

- dog is taken out to pee
- doors are double-checked that they're locked
- oven and stove are double-checked
- kids are double-checked and their bedroom door gets closed

I don't WANT to take EVERY PRECAUTION. We'd never do anything, in that case.

Yes I lock the door. But sometimes I don't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the father and man of the house, it is most certainly HIS obligation to secure house to protect his family. Can't believe he blows it off like that.

My DH is like OP's. Been together for 30 years. I check the following every night - shut off the gas burners, check that the motor of the cars in the garage and driveway is shut off, all the car-windows are rolled up, all lights are switched off and the doors are locked. I make sure that the lights on the porch and driveway is switched on, and the entry doors are locked and alarm is on. He does the dishes though. I am a SAHM BTW.

Sorry, is locking doors a penis requirement like garbage, recycling, band grilling?

I hope not, because my vagina and I like grilling ribs, and occasionally I like not having to do vagina sanctioned things like vacuum, watch the little people, and cook eggs.

I dunno. People here believe that the gender roles are very set in stone, right? It seems my DH and I, end up picking stuff from both the penis and vagina obligation lists. Having said that, he did impregnate me twice and I (DW) gave birth to both babies and nursed them.

No, but protecting his family is.

This is OP - we don't really have gender essentialist roles. He takes care of me and I take care of him. But we both have our negligent sides. This happens to be one of his. I don't think he has ADHD - maybe? I think I might, too - but it would be nice if he could remember to lock the f*cking door at night, that's true.

There was just a home invasion in my DC metro neighborhood by a guy who was mainly stealing from cars previously. Cops were already tracking him and he went through an unlocked window to try to rape the homeowners 12 year old daughter. They caught him. He was from rural area not too far away

Leaving doors unlocked or windows unlocked on the ground floor is as good as an invitation in. In any urban or urban / suburban area there will always be people trying to find what they can in the middle of the night, at some point.

Glad OP will be looking into some sort of technological solution to her unlocked for problem. Can understand her dh just wasn't programmed that way earlier in life and can't change. My dh is just like it, so I just go to bed last.

Anonymous wrote:"I always keep the door locked" -- I always keep it locked even when I'm home. And I am a large, strong man.

I never keep the door locked if I"m home. When I go out, I sometimes don't even bother to lock it. I'm a smallish woman.

Seriously, it is just preferences.

Anonymous wrote:With all this vagina, uterus, and egg cooking talk, now I'm thinking about people cooking human eggs and how that wouldn't make a very satisfying meal.

appetizers only.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was it Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson that said an unlocked door was like an invitation to come in? I think it was Dahmer. People absolutely do test doors to see if they're locked.

Home invasions are extraordinarily rare. They happen but the odds of it happening to YOU, in suburbia are comically low. It is winning the bad lottery uncommon.

I took a self defense class many years ago. I'll never forget the story a classmate told of what a man did to her, walking right into her house through an unlocked door, violently waking her up and raping her. He was never caught and she seemed so broken. I lock my house up tight, without fail.

Eh, not all men are born with the "protect their family" no matter how masculine they look.

My vagina and I have to go around and lock everything up every night. I was born in a high crime area and my dh was born in a low crime area where they didn't have to be so super vigilant all the time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the father and man of the house, it is most certainly HIS obligation to secure house to protect his family. Can't believe he blows it off like that.

My DH is like OP's. Been together for 30 years. I check the following every night - shut off the gas burners, check that the motor of the cars in the garage and driveway is shut off, all the car-windows are rolled up, all lights are switched off and the doors are locked. I make sure that the lights on the porch and driveway is switched on, and the entry doors are locked and alarm is on. He does the dishes though. I am a SAHM BTW.

Sorry, is locking doors a penis requirement like garbage, recycling, band grilling?

I hope not, because my vagina and I like grilling ribs, and occasionally I like not having to do vagina sanctioned things like vacuum, watch the little people, and cook eggs.

I dunno. People here believe that the gender roles are very set in stone, right? It seems my DH and I, end up picking stuff from both the penis and vagina obligation lists. Having said that, he did impregnate me twice and I (DW) gave birth to both babies and nursed them.

No, but protecting his family is.

With all this vagina, uterus, and egg cooking talk, now I'm thinking about people cooking human eggs and how that wouldn't make a very satisfying meal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the father and man of the house, it is most certainly HIS obligation to secure house to protect his family. Can't believe he blows it off like that.

My DH is like OP's. Been together for 30 years. I check the following every night - shut off the gas burners, check that the motor of the cars in the garage and driveway is shut off, all the car-windows are rolled up, all lights are switched off and the doors are locked. I make sure that the lights on the porch and driveway is switched on, and the entry doors are locked and alarm is on. He does the dishes though. I am a SAHM BTW.

Sorry, is locking doors a penis requirement like garbage, recycling, band grilling?

I hope not, because my vagina and I like grilling ribs, and occasionally I like not having to do vagina sanctioned things like vacuum, watch the little people, and cook eggs.

I dunno. People here believe that the gender roles are very set in stone, right? It seems my DH and I, end up picking stuff from both the penis and vagina obligation lists. Having said that, he did impregnate me twice and I (DW) gave birth to both babies and nursed them.

Well, I get that, as a vagina bearer, I will be responsible for birthing babies. But I am also able to take out garbage and lock doors. Likewise, my DH is absent a uterus, but having opposable thumbs, is also able to do other things, like chop celery, use a toilet scrub brush, and sort socks.